Chapter 29 #2
I peek out from the safety of Doug’s shirt. Will is standing now, towering above his wife, his shoulders squared. The moment
is electric.
“Wrong,” says Will in a low intense voice. “You’ve done a lot of things, Jennifer. Do you really think they’ll grant custody
to the woman who burned down Phelps’s restaurant?”
There are multiple gasps in the room—Allie, Bunny. A weird cackle—Ted.
“Jesus,” says Phelps. I hadn’t noticed him come in. “Is this for real?”
Jenn is fierce. She plants her fists on her waist and addresses Will, and Will alone. “No. I. Didn’t.”
Will laughs darkly. “Okay, fine. Keep gaslighting me. But it doesn’t matter. This time, I have proof.”
“That’s impossible,” says Jenn. Will advances another step and Jenn backs away. He’s right in front of her, looking down. He’s taller than I realized. And scarier. He lowers the bloody napkins from his head.
“I can’t prove that you hit me, Jennifer. I can’t prove you got Doug fired. I can’t prove you betrayed Bunny’s confidence.
But I can prove this.”
Hit him? What? Did anyone know that Will and Jenn’s marriage was in so much trouble?
Everything feels surreal. The way Doug is supporting my body, like he never has before. Will’s injury, which I can’t possibly
have caused. Jenn’s wild hair, and my tingling palms from where I grabbed it so tight. The fault lines I never knew were there
trembling under our feet.
And even though Will is full of smoldering intensity, I can see what’s underneath it as clear as day, because it’s the same
thing I’ve seen in my own eyes in the mirror for years: fear. The reflection of the person I’ve become with Doug. Someone
who’s always bracing, trying to be strong for the next blow. Someone who needs to be ready at every moment to pay rent on
her own, bail Doug out of jail, or parse through his complicated stories to decide for herself what might be true and what
might be lies . . . and then probe herself to see if she can find peace with never knowing for sure. Because even though the
big lies explode eventually, they’re always surrounded by the buzz of a hundred thousand tiny lies, inconsequential lies,
elaborate, fantastical, unnecessary lies.
I’m exhausted. And right now, I see Will is too.
Compassion softens me toward one of my oldest friends.
I’m a total jerk for doubting him and I wish with all my heart I hadn’t gone batshit and smashed that glass against his head.
It’s Jenn, and it always had to be Jenn, and how strange that, of this entire friend group, the one married to the drug abuser and the one married to the good Christian are the two most miserable people at the party.
Jenn is a devil in a silk skirt, and Will deserved so much better. So did I.
“You can’t prove anything, William,” Jenn hisses. “You’re bluffing. You’re trying to scare me, like the big old bully you
are. What evidence do you think you have, anyway?”
Will’s mouth twists in a ghastly grin. Blood trickles down his face. “I guess you’ll find out in court.”
Jenn’s gaze scatters, flickering around the group. “This is total crap. I knew we shouldn’t have come here. These people have
turned you against me, Will.” She zeroes in on him again. Her voice is tight. “Don’t you see what’s happening? None of these
friends of yours ever take responsibility. Now their lives are falling apart and they can’t stand that we have it so good. They’re
trying to destroy us—you and me. Are you going to let them? Or are you going to step up and finally be the man you’re supposed
to be?”
“If I’m a bully, you’ve made me into one,” says Will. “These people haven’t done a thing to us. You destroyed us, Jenn. You, and you alone.”
“Shiiiiit,” says Ted, and starts a slow clap. “Hats off, man.” No one joins.
“So it was you,” says Phelps through his teeth.
“You’re all insane!” screams Jenn. “I haven’t done anything! You all just want someone to blame for how your lives turned
out! Well, guess what—you screwed yourselves. You’re the liars and the cheaters! You’re the druggies and the adulterers and the—the criminals!”
No one answers. Jenn pants heavily, eyes still scanning with desperate energy, as if she’s expecting one of us to step up
and say, Oh, my bad, that makes sense.
“Just one more question,” says Phelps in a too-casual voice. “Did you, by chance, happen to tell Bennett that Olivia cheated
on him? With me?”
Wait—the perfect couple did what? I look around to see how Bennett and Olivia are taking this and . . . Where are they?
“No!” says Jenn. “Now, can we please just return to some sanity? Do you all realize how out of control this is getting?”
Phelps turns his attention to the phone in his hand, and for a second I think he’s going to lead the way back to some semblance
of normal. Play Wendy to our Lost Boys. Play a boisterous party song. De-escalate with a smart-ass comment that will make
us all laugh . . . lead us to the next activity . . .
There’s a loud ding.
Jenn’s hand flies to her waistband, where her phone is tucked—then stops a mere half an inch from touching it. She slowly
moves her hand away. Her breathing is coming faster.
Phelps pockets the phone. Somehow, he’s laughing. “Oh, my God. It was you. News flash, pretty lady—I didn’t sleep with Olivia! You want to know the truth? I jerked off in the bathroom, which,
yeah, I’m disgusting, I can accept that it makes me a piece of shit, not even gonna argue that right now—but Bennett is a
good person, okay? Possibly the best person I know. And you put him through years of fucking hell. Why, Jennifer? Why the fuck?”
Jenn is standing stock-still. Her throat bobs. She shakes her head. Her voice comes out weak. Whispery. “Okay. So I made one
mistake. As far as I knew, you did sleep with her. I just wanted to do the right thing.” Her chin trembles. “And I don’t expect
any of you to understand that.”
Phelps smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. “Maybe we’re just too stupid to get it. I mean—I can’t say I get it! Because—the
right thing by who, Jenn? By me? By Bennett? Or . . . by Eddie Duszynski?”
Jenn’s face crumples. She takes a step toward the front door, then stops.
Will is there. She turns to the hall with the bedrooms, but that’s where Allie is standing.
Jenn spins around with a cry of distress and rushes toward the kitchen, ripping the party streamers partly down on her way.
A slam tells me she’s taken refuge in the basement.
There’s a very strange silence. I feel like I just stepped off a roller coaster. I cling even harder to Doug. My head is spinning.
The room is too.
“So you’ll stay with me now,” says Doug before I can figure out how to ground myself. His arm goes around my shoulders. His
cheeks are pink. His voice is joyous. “Now you know, Hellie. It wasn’t me! It was that bitch who got me fired. I swear I was
doing so good, they loved me there until—it’s okay though, I mean, I have real talent, I can find another job in sales. And—babe,
this might not be the right time, but fuck it, it’s New Year’s—I’ve been thinking we should try for another kid, what do you
think? Third time’s the charm?”
I was never good at science, but if I didn’t understand how time could be relative, I understand it now, because looking into
Doug’s face, time is meaningless. I’m there forever, and also for the fraction of a fraction of a second. All my plans, all
my hope in reverse, all of what might have been and all of what might still be seems to crunch inward, then outward.
I raise a gentle hand to Doug’s face and stroke. The pulses of time are all suspended here, in this face I have loved for
seventeen years.
His eyes are blue. A strong sky blue with no bad weather in it.
If I could stay here forever, safe in this parenthesis, I would.
But with a merciless snap, time resumes.
Forcing me to choose—but I’ve already chosen.
“I’m sorry, Dougie,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
He pushes me away. Not hard, but I do stumble a little.
“Hey, now,” says Phelps. He places a defensive hand at my back.
“Fuck this!” Doug shouts as he spins around, hair flying, and punches right through the drywall. “Fuck that bitch and fuck all of you too!” With a wild roar, he storms out the front door.
Phelps, Will, Bunny, Ted, Allie, and I all look at each other. Allie’s hand is on her chest, her eyes wide. There’s a giant
hole in Phelps’s wall. But it doesn’t seem to matter compared to the giant hole in my heart.
What does it mean to let go of the person you love most in the world?
To open your hands and let them fall, down, away from you, when you could have held them, you could have, if you were just
strong enough—
“You okay, Hellie?” says Phelps.
I nod mutely and wrap my arms around my torso.
“Well, that was a lot, and I’m going to need a smoke before I have to look at Jennifer’s face again,” says Phelps. “Ted?”
“I’m gonna need something harder. Let me go get something from my car.” Ted makes for the front door.
“God, I just realized—where are Bennett and Olivia?” says Bunny.
“Cornfield,” calls out Ted right before the front door shuts behind him.
“Sorry . . . cornfield?” says Bunny.
“I’m gonna take five in the Dog House,” says Phelps. Only half under his breath, he says, “Bennett is not going to believe this shit.” Louder, he says, “C’mon, Will. Dog House. You and me, man.”
“In a minute.” Will is as pale as a ghost, his wound still trickling. “I just need a minute right here.” He plops down on
the couch. He looks like he’s in total shock.
“Would now be a good time for Jell-O shots?” says Allie as I turn away from the group and make my way alone down the hall, toward the bedroom Doug and I were going to share tonight. My asthma inhaler is in my purse and I could use a couple pumps.
The room is dark and warm. It feels safe. Now that I’m alone, with no one watching, I’m completely drained. All I want to
do is lie down and go to sleep. I rummage in my purse but I can’t find the inhaler. The forced air through the vent tickles
my face. I rummage in my overnight bag next.
“Jell-O shots? Anyone?” I hear Allie calling out.
“You know, I’d take a Jell-O shot.” It’s the faint sound of Bunny’s voice. “That actually sounds really nice right now.” Faded
and distant, like all of this will be soon.
I could drive west. Start over somewhere entirely different. Montana, maybe. Or Nebraska. I’ve never had trouble finding a
job.
That’s what I’m thinking when my hands close around something hard and cold and I realize I wasn’t rummaging in my own bag
at all, but Doug’s.
It’s a gun.